


The Tapping

by Taifics



Series: Paradoxes [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Academy Era - memories, Drums, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Memories, Spoilers s10e12, emotional tension, mental echoes, tapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 16:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taifics/pseuds/Taifics
Summary: Relationship between Missy and the Doctor is complex. Issues from the past are constantly affecting the present.





	The Tapping

She was sitting on the the wooden chair, in the wooden room with wooden everything and tapping her fingers on the wooden tabletop. She had told every single person around that she was going out for a walk in the morning but, in fact, it was just an excuse to hide away from humans and humanoids in general. She had been walking for a short while but, when she had finally escaped inquisitive gazes, she locked herself in a room. _Her_ room. _Her_ _room_ – hilarious. She had _a room_! Like a proper child! Now the Doctor could tell her to go to _her room_ if she was a bad, bad girl. She bit down on her bottom lip when that thought came to her mind. What was the name of that bitter, burning feeling that every ordinary person could feel at times but did not want to feel it at all?

_Knock, knock, knock, knock._

The sound revealing someone's presence on the other side of the door came suddenly, out of nowhere.

_Knock, knock, knock, knock._

Missy stopped tapping. It was him. Obviously. Who else could still knock four times, even after all those years of silence? The Master.

“Missy?”

It was not the Master's voice yet.

“Doctor?” asked Missy surprised.

“No, it's Santa,” the voice replied. “But instead of magical sleigh I happen to own a magical blue box... Currently lost... Can I come in?”

Missy stood up, unlocked the door and, without looking at the guest, she went back to her previous position behind the table.

The Doctor sat at the chair on the opposite side and studied her face for a moment.

“Why were you knocking?” asked Missy with her eyes focused on tapping fingers.

“Why are you asking?”

“You never did that before. Not in the vault, not on Gallifrey. Not ever.”

“I thought you may be busy here with the Master,” said the Doctor, overcoming hesitation.

“Busy?” she repeated the word and finally cast her gaze upon him. “Busy doing what?”

“I don't know,” said the Doctor slightly confused, “things.”

“Are you just having dirty thoughts, you apple pie?” asked Missy, blinking dramatically and glaring at him with terror.

The Doctor gave a short, hoarse laugh.

“I'm speaking of insane genius with quite an ego, so yes, I suppose, I do.”

“Bad, bad Theta Sigma,” she reproved jokingly, using his school nickname. “You, the sanctimonious one, and such words!”

The Doctor kept quiet for a moment, oddly quiet, looking at her concerned, touched.

“Why?” he asked eventually.

She thought at first that he was speaking about her using his old nickname but then he added:

“Why are you so upset with me knocking?”

“You just never did that,” she shrugged her shoulders. “Do not make yourself holier-than-thou. You are not. Pretending is an absurd in case somebody knows you so well as I do. Pray do not be polite. Check if it's open and then, if it's not, you can knock and finally knock it out if knocking itself is not enough. Doing otherwise, you're playing the role of someone you are not. ”

“Yet why knocking? Missy?” he repeated the question again, looking at the tabletop all along.

She followed his gaze and found her own tapping fingers.

_Four taps. Four taps. Four taps. Four taps._

She stopped at once.

The Doctor's eyes pierced right through her with unbearable intensity. She resisted his look hardly but did not downcast her own eyes. Instead, she gave him back a look as intensive, as forceful as the one she received.

“Why did you come here, by the way?” she spoke, changing the subject. “I believe, not just for a nice chat?”

“No, I'm enough of nice chatting after having very _pleasant_ one with your  _The Dark Side of the Moon_ version... Fullmoon, judgeing by the shape of his head...” sighed the Doctor.

“Oh, shut up!” exclaimed Missy, feeling personally offended suddenly but then she added somewhat automatically, “Sorry.”

The Doctor seemed to be quite unsure what to make of her behaviour for a moment but then he clearly decided to gloss over it.

“You and Harry have to find at least one lift today,” he spoke, “I was just searching for some with him but...”

“Time streams, software, blah, blah, blah... I guess,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “And do not humanize me using worn out aliases, Mr Smith.”

“Please, call me Basil,” said the Doctor playfully. “And, believe me, if it could humanize you anyhow I would never stop using it.”

Missy smiled uncannily. The Doctor mirrored her smile.

For a second she was considering bursting with sudden, hysterical laugh just to annoy him, showing what she thinks about this so-called _humanizing_ yet... she couldn't. There was some awkward choking in her throat. She couldn't... She couldn't recall... What was the name of that feeling when you find the void in your chest which you cannot fulfill? It makes you furious yet paralyzed, unable to realise vicious energy and... sad.

_Furious, paralyzed, unable, sad. Furious, paralyzed, unable, sad..._

The Doctor blinked, making his worried, frowned face. Missy didn't know why.

_Furious, paralyzed, unable, sad. Furious, paralyzed, unable, sad..._

“Missy?”

That buzzing echo calling her name like some nasty mosquito... Why he was still sitting there? Task was given! Missy go, Missy find, Missy believe, Missy don't...

“Missy, don't...”

_Don't?_

“Missy!”

She took a deep breath, inhaling sharply through her nostrils and saw the Doctor's features slowly materialising out of the mist. His lips were moving, speaking something expressively.

“Sorry, what?” she asked sleepily, coming back to reality.

“Your fingers,” he pointed in response, giving her palm a quick look and going back to staring in her eyes visibly worried.

She was tapping again. She stopped.

“Why did you lock yourself in here?” he asked. “Really, I need to know.”

“Oh, Doctor,” she sighed, sounding bored. “Here's just too much of humanoids hanging around and their presence is much too tempting... I'm doing my best to keep myself out of trouble! Good, good girl, Missy! That's me! Don't want to fail my exams, sir!”

“I think you half-failed already, hitting my head with your umbrella, chaining me to the wheelchair... again... and planning my death,” spoke the Doctor wryly.

Missy finched slightly and made an innocent face.

“To be precise, I did not chain you to the wheelchair. It was him. I had nothing to do with the wheelchair, I swear!”

“Stop putting the blame on... well... yourself... That's not the point,” said the Doctor, looking somewhat tired. “It's not about him. It's about you. You're not like him. Not anymore. You've changed... Don't play along. Just don't. Cause your're not...”

Missy smiled sympathetically, shaking her head in response.

“No,” she said quietly. “Don't turn false assumptions into facts.”

“So it was all a lie... All those years...” whispered the Doctor after a long while. His voice was heavy, dark and deep like the sound of raindrops falling on the bottom of well. “Missy?”

She felt that choking again, stronger now, struggling, bitter. What he was expecting to hear? Simple answer? How could there be a simple answer to the question with its lifespan longer than existence of the whole constellations?

She kept quiet, looking back with her gaze intense and her expression unchanged.

“You're wrong,” she said eventually, maintaining her face blank. “I am just like him.”

The Doctor closed his eyes visibly exhausted.

“That tapping,” he murmured. “It that the reason? Do you?”

“No,” she replied, barely opening her mouth while speaking. “I do not and he does not as well. We're both gifted telepaths, experiencing constant echos.”

The Doctor nodded.

For a few minutes no one of them was willing to speak. They were just coexisting in the same room yet they could be miles away in space and time with no knowledge of each other's presence, drifting far away in their vast minds, running through the fields of red grass, bathing in the light of twin suns...

“I wonder where is he, actually?” said the Doctor finally.

“Koala-man? No idea.”

“He was looking for you and left me behind so he should be here long before I came.”

“He wasn't. Man-me likes lonely walks.”

The Doctor smiled.

“Oh, Missy...” he said tired but strangely joyous.

“What is that? That joy? You're doing _this_ thing with your eyes... How are you doing it, by the way? You're setting them on fire?” she asked surprised, gesturing her hands to make a point. “You look like you're going to steal a star again!”

The Doctor blinked with pure disbelief.

“Steal a star?”

“Don't you remember?” she marveled. “Come on, you sentimental fool, you gave me one, back when we were kids!”

“Captured in a small glass box,” the Doctor agreed.

“That's it, that's it,” she acknowledged willingly, “I recall, I've lost that box soon after you gave it to me. I have never confessed it to you.”

“Oh, really?” he asked amused.

Missy nodded, looking funnily ashamed.

The Doctor smiled wider in response.

They were sitting on wooden chairs, in the wooden room with wooden everything and tapping their fingers on the wooden tabletop simultaneously.

 


End file.
